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354 BUSSY TO 1754. chap, model of resolution and tact. He had spent many [ , years in India in close contact with the natives, more 1751. especially with those of high rank, and he understood them thoroughly. He had, too, the advantage of possessing a settled plan. Before leaving Pondichery he had concerted with Dupleix the manner in which he was to carry on his relations with Muzaffar Jang, and he anticipated no difficulty in following his instructions to the letter now that he had to deal with the more facile character of Salabat. A glance at the map of India, and a recollection of the history of that period, will show how vast, how gigantic, yet, under ordinary circumstances, how feasible was this plan. Separated by the Vindhya range from the disorganised empire proper of the Mughal, the possessor of the Muhamma- dan province of the Dakhan seemed to be in a position to be able to give law to the whole of south-eastern India. He commanded a large army, and ruled over a warlike population. He was the liege lord of the ruler of the Karnatik, and he wielded in that province itself the authority of the Mughal. He was thus the pos- sessor of the moral and physical power ; he had the right to use force, and the force ready to be used ; and in those days, when the name of the Mughal was every- thing, and the reputation of the European settlers com- paratively nothing, that double power was, if not an irresistible, yet a very potent, lever. This being the position of the province known as the Dakhan, and this the power of its ruler, can we greatly blame that policy which at a moment when France had all but overcome her hated rival in the Karnatik, deter- mined, without striking a blow, to make that position and that influence purely French 1 What a vista did it not hold out to a patriotic ambition ! What dreams of empire, what visions of imperial dominion! Pos- sessing the Karnatik, by this policy gaining the Dakhan, the minarets of the Jami Masjid, and the